Expeditions: Russian Far East

Because of its remoteness and impassable ice floes in winter, the Sea of Okhotsk is one of the world's least-explored and most biologically productive seas. The Kuril Islands are a haven for huge colonies of seabirds. Northern fur seals and Steller sea lions haul out on rocky outcrops. The Stellar Sea Eagle soars overhead, and even whales, once hunted almost to extinction, are now returning to these frigid waters.

On the Kamchatka Peninsula, the world's largest brown bear hunts along rivers churning with salmon that roar through taiga forests. It is a "Land of Fire and Ice," a geothermal wonderland for photographers. In the Kronotsky Reserve, geysers gush across a bubbling landscape of smouldering, snow-capped volcanoes, thermal springs and boiling mud pots.

Several expeditions continue from Kamchatka across the Bering Sea to the Aleutians and to the Alaska and Kenai peninsulas, some of the most inaccessible places in North America. These nutrient-rich waters support vast populations of fish, birds from every continent on earth, and countless numbers of whales, dolphins, sea lions and fur seals, and an expedition through this wilderness will surely be a trip of a lifetime!